Manhattan Beach is a tough market to buy a home in. In a town where starter homes start in the $1.5M range and builders are buying everything they can get their hands on, you can’t blame buyers for getting a bit excited about that rare foreclosure “opportunity”. The problem is that the market usually determines what something is worth and in this town, true below market “opportunities” are rare.

The home at 1410 Ardmore, located right near downtown Manhattan, certainly is a good example of something that’s too good to be true. Originally listed at $800,000 in early December, this was never a realistic price as it was more than 50% of what it should have been listed. Unfortunately buyers often think that because it’s a short sale, they just may get it at that price. In this case, it certainly didn’t take long for them to get an avalanche of offers and on January 6th the home not only went pending, but the price changed from $800,000 to $1,800,000. That’s a 125% price increase.

While there were endless buyers thinking they might just get the deal of the century, eventually the market dictates what homes are actually worth.

That doesn’t mean that great deals aren’t occasionally out there, but if it seems too good to be true….it is.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a bank owned home in Manhattan Beach. There are still a limited number of foreclosures in the South Bay, but qith homes now valued beyond the former peak and prices rising daily in Manhattan Beach it would seem almost impossible that someone would be foreclosed on but this is clearly a remnant of a market significantly different just 2 years ago. With the foreclosure process taking a long time we’re just now seeing this on the market.